


A Newfound Hope

by orphan_account



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik contemplate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Newfound Hope

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT MINE! It's my friend who doesn't have an account and she wanted me to post this. It's basically the greatest thing in the world.
> 
> ~HalfJewel

Charles begins to roll over, an old habit that will prove almost impossible to shake off, but finds he cannot. His sheets are tangled around him as he grunts, trying desperately to lift himself with his arms, relying solely on his upper body strength to carry him to the other side of the king size bed he sleeps in. A heavy sigh escapes his lips as his energy leaves him and he plops back down, a sheen of sweat already living amidst his tousled brown hair. His bright blue eyes shine in the darkness of night and the ongoing current of thoughts once again attacks his mind, breaking through the barriers it has taken him years to put up. He screws his eyes shut and wishes for sleep, but knows it won’t come. He rests his head against the pillow, noticing how the bed gives him some comfort, but that comfort stops near the small of his back, just as everything else he could possibly feel refuses to break through the damaged nerves of his spine. He swallows, a loud gulping sound in the silent bedroom, and catches a girl’s sleepy thoughts as she drifts in and out of slumber. She is thinking about a boy who may or may not feel the same. Charles almost smiles at this, not only because his students are so carefree that they have time to dawdle over such things, but that the boy does indeed like her back.  
Another, more mature thought enters his mind, one of selflessness and love, and he cannot help thinking about things he should just stay away from. He hears, as if far off and distant, a gunshot and feels the pinpoint of pain that he will remember for all eternity. That dot of pain grows and grows until it shoots up his back and most likely down his legs, but he’ll never truly know. He gasps with the shock of it and it disappears in seconds, leaving Charles doubting that it had ever even been there at all. He hears laughter, the kind that only his own mind could produce, the kind that only appears in memories that make his throat close up and his eyes tear up. He sighs and the noise blows the giggling away, like a wisp of smoke in the air. But then, there is the face of a man, with dark hair and blue-grey eyes. His expression is impassive, cruelly so, and he seems to be mocking his audience, as if their action of hanging on his every word is somehow funny. But when he speaks, his eyes light up in a fiery wrath, and Charles blinks away the thought just before he hears his own voice, sounding so naïve and relaxed. So completely unaware of what will happen. “You know, I believe true focus lies somewhere between rage…and serenity.” But there is only rage to Erik’s eyes, only a deadly hatred that will never be quelled by love. Only a vehemence that will never cease to be enough. Charles’ sanity seems to be slipping with each second of the half life he’s living.  
Erik panics for a moment, his light eyes darting around the room, but then he spots Mystique, her blue body tucked beneath the covers, her red hair glowing in the dark. He would smile, but his heart weighs heavy on this night and he sighs inwardly. He settles back into the sheets and closes his eyes, praying for dreamless sleep. But, the universe being the jerk that needs to get slapped that it is, he cannot rest. He reaches into the drawer of his nightstand and takes from it a warped little bullet, a twisted piece of metal with flecks of blood covering its shiny surface. He rolls it in his fingers, feels the comforting hum of it on his palm, and closes his eyes in a tortured kind of bliss as he hears Charles scream, sees how he plummets to the white sand in a tangle of limbs. Erik ignores Mystique’s look of grief, shrugs off Moira’s dazed expression, and only sees the man he is struggling to get to. He lifts Charles off of the sand and there is only pain and agony in the depths of his blue eyes, only hurt and regret. If he could, Erik would take that bullet and push it into his own spine, just to rid Charles of that look, that horrible tormented look. But it is there, just as the bullet has found its way into Erik’s palm, and he opens his eyes to find the room he is in dark and cold, completely unlike the beach he was just on. Erik sighs and places the bullet back in its place. Against his better judgment, he puts and arm around the snoozing Mystique. It’s not that he doesn’t like the girl, he does, or she wouldn’t be in his bed, but she is Charles’ sister and just looking at her brings a tidal wave of memories to the forefront of his mind. She snuggles closer to him and puts her head against his scarred chest, smiling to herself in an innocent kind of way. Erik guesses that her girlish ways will have disappeared in a year or two, a month with him would drive anyone away from their morals. But, he thinks with a tinge of bittersweet acceptance in his heart, Charles is the exception. He stands his ground even when the earth around him plummets to its extinction. At the thought, Erik actually does smile, but then he remembers the one thing that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Charles, innocent, kind, ignorant, arrogant, accepting Charles, will never stand his ground again. Instead, he will sit in his white wheelchair made entirely out of plastic, looking frail and pitiful with the way his shoulders slump against the back of the chair, and his curly hair will fall before his vivid blue eyes in a manner both uplifting and frightening. Uplifting because his cheeks are constantly flushed, like he just ran a marathon and could probably run another with the adrenaline pumping through is veins, and frightening because those vivid blue eyes shine brighter than ever, and Erik can’t understand why.


End file.
